Top 10 Tips from UBB Classic to vBulletin Users

[MitchP]

I’m in the process of making the switch to from UBB Classic vBulletin on my site.

After spending years immersed in one product, it will take a little getting used to another product, but I’m looking forward to it.

I plan to do as much searching and reading here as possible to avoid asking the same questions.

However, for those who made the switch from UBB Classic to vBulletin, do you have any tips you’d like to share to make the transition easier?

One of my goals is to duplicate the look and colors of my UBB classic, while enjoying the features of vBulletin.

Thanks in advance.

[FreshFroot_]

Well I didn't change from UBB, instead phpbb and I can say there is a big change. You have many more features and the abilty to do more especially design/style wise. Copying your old forum style over shouldn't be a problem just take it step by step and you should be okay. All the best with your board,

Freshfroot

[McJ]

Greetings.

You should find the import pretty simple. We imported 500,000 posts and 16,000 member records in just under 5 hours. Depending on your server load, this might be quicker. Make a note of your custom smilie locations, and have a browse through cleaner.php (in tools folder) because you will need that to tidy some of the image paths.

Another thing to note is that some folk may have trouble loggin in. This is because of the way vB and UBB handle passwords. Tell your folks who can't log in to use CAPS in their password. This should help.

I did have a complete check-list that I made when I first imported, so I'll route that out and post here for you. It basically contained everything I needed to do in vB Admin CP to mirror my feature permission on UBB.

I didn't import PMs. During a test import, this was a little weird. Some PMs appeared that had been deleted yonks ago, and other more recent PMs went missing. PMs and Buddy-Ingore Lists weren't that important to me. The actual post, thread and member record data was my primary concern.

You will not regret importing. vBulletin favours scaleability, whereas UBB does not. Also, vB have a million features you'll keep stumbling across and smiling. I'm still finding features that are so convenient I just have to smilie at these folks at Jelsoft. They really did their homework.

Most importantly. This is the place to come with errors or problems. The few probs I did have were solved here quite quickly.

Good luck. Don't delete your old forum before checking thoroughly your new one is working OK.

[MitchP]

Thanks. Maybe you can offer some insight on paths:

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1052793#post1052793

Still trying to work throught that issue. I also have an email into my host in case I'm missing something.

Seems simple enough, but I'm missing something.

[McJ]

-. close vbulletin
-. remove forums and categories
-. remove meta tags under General Settings
-. change registration details > no image > email verification
-. apply permission to registered group
-. change post layout in Styles & Templates
-. upload Liquid Expanded
-. import ubb
-. update counters
-. prune registered group member fields
-. move imported members to registered members
-. apply super moderator status
-. upload graemlins
-. add new graemlins
-. update censor list
-. run SQL update
-. run cleaner
-. optimize tables
-. rebuild forum cache

You may need to open close threads and close open. Here is the instruction:

UPDATE thread SET open=10 WHERE open=1;
UPDATE thread SET open=1 WHERE open=0;
UPDATE thread SET open=0 WHERE open=10;

[bayridge]

McJ

What is Liquid Expanded?

[McJ]

McJ

What is Liquid Expanded?
A vB theme. :)